


someone reaching back for me

by impulserun



Series: the one to fly to [2]
Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 07:03:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16363148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impulserun/pseuds/impulserun
Summary: Tharkay considers the blond man currently napping on his couch.





	someone reaching back for me

**Author's Note:**

> Expanding on part 3 of [you belong to the sky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16296773), because apparently I'm back in this particular pit now.

Tharkay stumbles home just past six in the morning, dead tired and drenched in his own still-cooling sweat. What he wouldn’t give for a hot shower and a full eight hours of sleep!

He can’t, though. At least, not until he sorts out the matter of the blond man in his living room.

William Laurence is… strange, he decides, picking his way up the stairs to his apartment on the topmost floor. He had already thought the man a bit odd, when they’d first met in the aftermath of a bank robbery. He’d been standing here, overwhelmed by the quiet relief that things hadn’t ended in violence for once, and the man had had the audacity to thank him. It had been a truly strange experience. Gratitude wasn’t something he was used to in either of his identities….

Then there had been the altercation in the alley. He’d watched from the rooftops as a hot-headed blond man had pulled a would-be rapist off his victim and punched him square in the face, and the sight had brought a figurative tear to his eye. For one brief moment, he had almost believed that he wouldn’t have to intervene. Perhaps, he had thought, there was a hope for humanity after all.

Then, of course, the would-be assailant had burst into flames. A metahuman, and a pyrokinetic at that. Tharkay had sighed, then, and set about stepping in to do his job.

And it had been Laurence, of course. Of course it had been Laurence—and he had blushed as he stammered out his thanks, too, the tips of his ears pinking slightly. It had been… flattering, he decides. Yes. Flattering.

Not that it mattered in the end, he sighs, unlocking his door and pushing it open. Dalliances between supers and civilians rarely end well; he only has to look to Roland to see _that_ , if his past experience with Sara hadn’t served as enough of a lesson.

Treading lightly, he moves past the tall coat-rack by the front door (where Laurence’s understated blue jacket currently rests), past the crumpled old tee-shirt laying haphazardly about (he cringes belatedly, wishing he had put it in the laundry hamper before leaving for patrol), and over to his battered old sofa, where Laurence has evidently dozed off.  He’s slumped ever-so-slightly to the right, one of his couch cushions—a gift, he thinks, from the one aunt who remains fond of him—clutched to his stomach. Beside him, curled into the couch, is a smugly purring Lung Tien Xiang.

“I told you not to bother him,” Tharkay hisses.

“To be completely fair, I did not,” Tien Xiang purrs. “I just kept him company while you were gone.”

Tharkay grits his teeth, barely restraining the urge to curse.

“Get up,” he says instead. “And out. Did you even tell your family where you were? Your mother and brother must be worried.”

“Hah!” Tien Xiang scoffs—it is an odd sound coming from a cat’s throat. “They know I can defend myself. Certainly better than Chuan can, at any rate.”

The black cat gets to his paws, stretching before he leaps noiselessly to the floor. It is a human man that stands to greet him, one with fair skin and Chinese features, silky black hair in a low ponytail and bright eyes that shine with mischief. A face familiar to him, to his own reluctant regret.

“Go home, Tien Xiang,” he tells him, in the younger man’s native Mandarin. “You should’ve been home long before I brought Laurence back.”

“You just want him all to yourself!” Tien Xiang laughs. “I can see right through you, you know; I have known you long enough for that. Fine, fine, I will go. There is no need to get so worked up about it. I will be there for patrols tomorrow! Or, well, today, in any case.”

“I never agreed to mentoring you,” Tharkay grumbles, out of sheer force of habit. But Tien Xiang is gone—shifted into a bird and flown out the window—and so no one is there to hear his protestations. No one save Laurence, who is for all intents and purposes dead to the world on his sofa.

The blond grumbles and shifts slightly in his sleep, his face slightly damp with drool. A faint flutter of affection starts up somewhere in the depths of his chest. Tharkay, shamefully enough, is growing attached to this man. To this bizarrely, utterly ordinary man who thanks supers out of the goodness of his heart and stands up for the defenceless despite not having any powers at all and who, ridiculously enough, is so oblivious as to not be aware of the romantic connotations of buying a strange man a drink. Sara would laugh to see him now.

He turns away from the sofa, face flushing. A shower, Tharkay decides. A hot shower is exactly what he needs to put this whole mess from his mind and start feeling like himself again.

*

When Laurence next wakes, the sky is light, and he finds that someone has covered him with a blanket while he’d slept.

“Good morning,” a familiar voice drawls.

Startled, Laurence sits up, doing his best to ignore the twinge of complaint in his neck and shoulders. “Ah, good morning—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s alright,” the Kestrel smiles. “You looked like you needed the rest.”

The hero has forgone his usual leather ensemble, favouring a dark grey hoodie and black sweatpants that look as if they’ve been slept in. The black domino mask still hides his features, though; Laurence feels vaguely guilty for making him hide his own identity in the comfort of his own home.

“You’re welcome to my shower and toiletries,” the Kestrel tells him. “I’ve set out a spare toothbrush for you; I don’t have any clothes in your size, though.”

“That’s quite alright, thank you,’ Laurence replies hastily, before fleeing to the safety of the bathroom. Cleaning the stale, foul aftertaste of the night before out of his mouth has him feeling halfway human again; the hot water does the rest of the work. When he re-emerges, he is considerably more prepared to face the sight of the Kestrel in his sleep-rumpled civvies.

“I have good news about your scorned lover,” the hero says, a wry smile tugging at the corners of his thin lips. “I was able to, ah, convince him to leave you alone, with the help of my allies in the local police. He should not be bothering you anymore, and if he does—well, I have been instructed to give you this card.”

Laurence accepts it; it is plain, black-on-white with the local department’s logo and details printed on it in neat, formal letters. _Sara Maden_ , it reads, with a set of numbers and an email beneath the name.

“Call her,” he presses. “For anything at all, if you suspect that Rankin is involved. She has been on his case for months now.”

He pockets the card, nodding his acquiescence, and then, all too soon, it is time for him to go.

“Ah—just for the record,” he stops to say, at the front door. “That is—Rankin, um. Isn’t my usual type.”

“Oh?” The Kestrel asks, amused. “And what is?”

“More heroic, certainly,” he forces out, before the courage can leave him. Laurence dares to chance a fleeting glance at the super’s surprised expression. Then his embarrassment at his own audacity overtakes him and he hurriedly ducks out the door, the faint spicy scent of the Kestrel’s shampoo clinging steadfastly to his hair.


End file.
